


last love song for now

by arriviste



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, family therapy disguised as ring lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 21:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21204665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arriviste/pseuds/arriviste
Summary: “Three rings for the Elven-kings,” said Elrond. “I have never understood that line of the doggerel."





	last love song for now

Celebrimbor died in the city that he had loved, that he had helped to build with his own hands. He had meant it to be a new start, a clean new city for a clean new Age, among the holly trees. He fought for that, all the way to the end: desperately, at the last, on the steps of the House of the Mírdain.

His death was bitter. He had died in the cruel hands of the creature who had worn an angel’s face and claimed to be his _friend_; and yet it was a triumph, a death that denied the Abhorred One what he sought. He lost both Celebrimbor’s bright soul and the last and best works of his brilliant hands, all of which he had dearly coveted. 

“Three rings for the Elven-kings,” said Elrond. “I have never understood that line of the doggerel. Nenya was always meant for your hand, Galadriel; that is clear, from the size and the shape, the very _tune_ of it. Celebrimbor knew you well, after all those years in Hollin, and he made Nenya for no other hand than yours.”

“There have not been three Elven-kings together in Middle Earth since before Celebrimbor made the Three,” Galadriel said. “Not since Beleriand was lost. I do not think he ever meant them for three _reigning_ kings, Elrond; certainly he never meant any of the three for Oropher.”

“No,” Elrond said. On his hand Vilya was a blue flame, the hole at the heart of a fire. “But surely he always meant Vilya for Gil-galad?”

Gil-galad had been dead now two years, and Oropher a little longer. Celebrimbor had been dead longer than that. 

Vilya had settled onto Elrond’s finger as though it had been made for him, but it had looked equally well on Gil-galad’s hand, which had been rather larger. Its deep blue stone was the same colour as the sea and as fathomless, although it was tuned to the air. It seemed to have passed from one hand to another without a murmur.

When Elrond remembered the King he had loved, he resented it for that ease; yet he wore it to keep faith with his King. It was perhaps unsurprising that he was having difficulty embracing Vilya’s power.

“He meant Vilya for Gil-galad, Nenya for me, and Narya for himself. Can you not imagine, then, who the three Elven-kings in the rhyme are?”

“Not the three of you!” Elrond said. “Celebrimbor never wanted to be a king. He could have been, in Eregion at the beginning, if he had chosen to be; and we should have known then how deeply Sauron had deceived him when he began to gather power Ost-in-Edhil to himself, who had _never_ wanted to rule before, _never_ wished for power.” 

“Perhaps,” said Galadriel. She turned Nenya on her white finger, its clear stone gleaming. It had been made for her by someone who knew the shape of her mind, and also the loveliness of her cheek against the sky, the cool passion of her eyes, the core of something in her that went down further than bedrock, stood stronger than steel. It had been made for her by someone who loved her. “The Ring of Water. Have you ever wondered that it should be given to me, who at the time of its making had long dwelled inland; or that the Ring of Air should be given to Gil-galad, who lived all his life by the sea, first on Balar and then in his long lordship of Lindon?”

“I have,” Elrond said; “but I will not doubt the wisdom of Celebrimbor’s choice.”

“Yet you do not doubt that he meant Narya for himself?”

“Well, it fits! He always smelled like the forge,” Elrond said, the corner of his mouth lifting in memory. 

The Ring of Fire for the Noldor prince who was at the fire’s side his truest self: the last descendant of Fëanor, Spirit of Fire. The scent of smoke had always lingered in Celebrimbor’s long dark hair, with sundry strange alchemical smells, and very often you would talk to him and realise several paragraphs in that that his attention was only nominally on you, however fixed his grey eyes seemed to be on your face. His mind was elsewhere, seeking out the great secrets of Arda, the deep wisdoms.

Galadriel did not smile. “The Ring of Water for the daughter of Finarfin and Eärwen. For Gil-galad, the Ring of Air. Think about the affinity of the Rings.”

To think too long on the affinity of Celebrimbor’s last works would take Elrond back to anger he had long since put aside, to renew long-ago pain: yet he had asked Galadriel for her counsel in this task he had taken up with Gil-galad's ring, the inheritance he _had_ accepted while denying the Kingship, and he would be a fool to do so and not listen to her.

“Air, fire, water: I would be blind indeed if I could not draw the parallels.”

He had lost a father to each of them, after all. One was forever out of reach, carrying his Silmaril through the skies; another had gone into the fiery heart of the earth still clutching his. A third had cast his into the sea and never been seen again. Nenya had always been meant for Galadriel, but if Elrond could choose an affinity of his own, he might have chosen water. Perhaps that was why Vilya felt so foreign, why he resisted it.

He would never understand why Celebrimbor had chosen to recall such terrible things in his own great work. Why Celebrimbor, who had always wished to begin afresh, to forge his own path, would return to his grandfather’s doomed works and the ruin of his House when he made his last masterpieces.

Galadriel said, “You brood too much on the Silmarils; that is the root of your problem. If I did so, bearing Nenya would be a far greater burden. Think, Elrond. For you, air signifies Eärendil; that is not wrong, but your focus is too narrow. Eagles came in response to Fingon's prayer, and bore Fingolfin's body to Turgon. Is Eärendil the Bright who sails the skies not Turgon’s grandchild? Was Gil-galad not Fingon’s son?”

“I’ve heard stories--"

Galadriel ignored the half-question that was an invitation to gossip, focusing on her lesson. “The Ring of Fire, for Fëanor’s kin. The Ring of Water, for Finarfin’s. And for Fingolfin’s – the Ring of Air. _Think._”

“I don’t understand.”

“Air. Eagles.”

“Manwë,” Elrond said. Then, brows drawing together: “The Elder King! You think that was deliberate?” It would have been like Celebrimbor. “A last thrust against Fëanor?”

“A last statement of his own philosophy, perhaps; I don’t believe there was anything petty in it.”

The Ring of Air was mightiest of the three Rings, its predominance undoubted. It was a ring of power, controlling elements, claiming mastery over Arda. Nenya’s work was holding things together, maintaining what might otherwise be lost: Narya kindling hearts, seizing imaginations, resisting tyranny. If you knew your history, you could map out affinities in a different way than Elrond had done, and see Fingolfin, Finarfin, Fëanor, as perhaps they should have been.

Three Elven-kings who had been brothers: three Elven-kings who had never stood together under the same sky. Fëanor would have assumed that the most powerful ring would go by default to the oldest house. Yet Celebrimbor his grandson had made Vilya for Gil-galad, and Narya for himself.

In the years since Sauron had been revealed, Celebrimbor had been called foolish by many for opening the doors of Eregion so wide that evil could enter: for taking up a position so contrary to the possessiveness Fëanor had been known for that he had lost all discrimination. In the years since Eregion fell, Elrond had worried that when Celebrimbor stood alone at the doors of the House of the Mírdain waiting for his false friend, he had regretted his long, painful, hopeful road of choosing again and again not to repeat the past.

He had chosen over and over to share knowledge, not hoard it: to share power, not hold it. To be generous, not jealous, humble, not proud, friendly, not suspicious. It had led him to that last hopeless stand, but that end had not been inevitable, and the road there had been long and full of true friends, good deeds, and great works. 

The Ring of Air on Elrond’s finger told him that Celebrimbor had continued to make that choice again with his eyes open all the way to the end. He had struck, for the last time, against the choking legacy his family had left him; chosen a last time to share power, not to claim it.

It was so terribly like him. 

“Oh, _Celebrimbor,_” Elrond said, feeling something open in his chest, and stared down at the opaque blue stone.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not wholly certain this scans, but I suppose it doesn't have to as long as it helps Elrond connect to Vilya. 
> 
> Tumblr is @ arrivisting, I'm trying to use it more. Do say hello, I need people to talk about elves with.


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